EAP materials have been used to produce a force, as an electrically controlled and powered actuator. An EAP device or actuator has a layer of EAP material (such as a dielectric elastomer) that is sandwiched by a pair of compliant electrodes. When a sufficient voltage is applied to the compliant electrodes, the input electrical energy is transformed into mechanical work, for example, as an electromechanical thickness and/or planar strain. Some EAP devices require relatively high drive voltages to be applied to their electrodes, for example, around 500 volts, albeit at fairly low current levels (e.g., around 10 micro amperes for example). In most applications, the driver circuit for an EAP device is a voltage boost circuit that produces the high drive voltage from a relatively low voltage dc input source such as, for example, a lithium ion cell battery. An EAP device works in accordance with the following approximate relationship
                              S          z                =                              -                          ɛ              r                                ⁢                      ɛ            0                    ⁢                                    V              2                                      Yt              2                                                          (                  Equation          ⁢                                          ⁢          1                )            
Where t is the thickness of the dielectric elastomer, Y represents the modulus of elasticity of the elastomer material, ∈0 denotes the permittivity of free space and ∈r is the dielectric constant of the elastomer.
Using further approximations, and assuming that a thickness compression results in a corresponding biaxial or planar strain, the EAP device can also elongate in the planar direction according to the following formula,
                              S          planar                =                              1                                          1                -                                                      ɛ                    r                                    ⁢                                      ɛ                    0                                    ⁢                                                            V                      2                                                              Yt                      2                                                                                                    -          1                                    (                  Equation          ⁢                                          ⁢          2                )            
In some instances, there may be multiple EAP devices that need to be controlled separately, as part of the same, for example, consumer electronics device. A solution for the driver circuit in such a case is to provide a separate high voltage driver circuit that is connected to the electrode pairs of its respective EAP device, where each driver is separately controllable and can produce the “full scale” voltage needed, e.g. upwards of 500 volts, to produce the desired displacement.